NASA captures the earth at night with Nikon D3S

German videographer Michael König has compiled a breathtaking HD video from footage shot from the International Space Station. The original video clips, that König has processed and set to music, were created from a series of time-lapse stills of the Earth at night and include footage of Aurora Borealis and Australis. Viewing the original still images on NASA's 'The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth' website reveals they were shot with a Nikon D3S with 17-35mm F2.8 and 14-24mm F2.8 lenses (via Daily Mail).

Comments

So beautiful, in particular the northern lights. Shows again how thin and vulnerable the atmosphere of our planet is - and we abuse it as waste dumb for our greenhouse gases. Latest climate bulletin of the World Meteorolical Society WMO states again a new high in the amount of greenhouse gases and an accelerated rate of increase... This comes to my mind, not the fuzz about the camera used for it.

Looks like these NASA boys need a little help with setting up timelapse - i'll come up there and sort it out, (i'll wave my fee, although I do expect all travel costs to be covered) should they want it done right next time ;).... put it on AP & I'de throw open that lens rather than let it hit a nasty 12800ISO! - I saw F3.5 and ISO 12k... go f2.8 & 6k!....

Gotta love all of these Canon fanboys..lol. The up coming 1Dx MIGHT...just MIGHT be the ONLY thing Canon has EVER had to compete with the D3S so please stop the nonsense. Perhaps Nasa wanted images there were in FOCUS and not noisy? :)

Impressive views.I do not think the camera matters a great deal here.The speed could have been a little less for my tastes, but then the illusion of film would probably have been lost because we are used to so many frames per second.I thought the music was quite alright.

I don't care which camera, especially considering the rich bounty of cameras that are able to perform this task. Nevertheless, it is amazing! Just think where we were only 20 years ago, or 10 for that matter. Great stuff.

Amazing photography. Who cares what make of camera they used, they could have used a disposable from Boots and still captured impressive images that none of us will ever experience. So please give the technojargon a rest and forget about canon vs nikon for a moment. And get a life because people that love photography are not that bothered that much about camera gear, you know what they say, the best camera is the one you have with you.

@Michael König: greats videos, a little bit to fast, go in contact to bavarian TV BR3, produce a new volume of "space night" including the fantastic music of space night II-VIII and sell this on bluray 1080p. :-)

I thought it was too fast also. However I do not think it is Michael's choice. I am wondering if the shooting original interval was maybe too long... Then playing it a bit slower would result in jittery video.

I feel the speed made the images more powerful. In space, you would expect everything to be slow, like all the other footage we have come to see by now.But this time, it's not. It looked, sounded and felt like another planet all together.

Ok, so I'll ask again and I hope no one else tells me again that it is the nile because not only is the nile too easy to identify in the video... that's absolutely not what I'm talking about. For those that didn't get it or could not see what I saw... what's the long orange strip at 3:47 and 4:38? My bet is the India-Pakistan border... could it be?

14-24/2.8 on D3S is sick that Canon cannot catch. I would say Canon or Nikon they are not very different these days, but NASA obviously prefers Nikon not based on the performance. they used to use incapable D2x and low quality Nikkor lenses before.

Perhaps they used those "inferior" cameras because they don't fail like Canon is so apt to do in extraordinary circumstances. Just a guess on my part based on all the extreme climate results in the past.

I love these Nikon vs Canon threads. To make this video, the crew fastened the D3s to a stationary object and let the shutter go continuously until daylight. Max is 45 minutes per orbit as each orbit is 90 minutes, and remember that the ISS is moving at 17,000 Miles Per Hour. a fast shutter speed is essential in order to avoid blurring. In low light, you have to bump the iso way up and thats where the D3s shines, high iso and low noise., Canon just can't compete.

I found the music totally unfit as well. No disrespect to its composer or those who enjoyed it, but images from space, IMO, should have space music. I even went as far as to replace it with something a bit more to my taste and now I have a watchable video. You can find it below, if you care to see how it looks.

not that i enjoyed the music either... but i am sorry to say that there is not such thing as "space music" as sound waves need air (or any other medium, for that matter) to travel. thus, in the vacuum of space, sorry, no sounds :)

1. How do you copy-paste music ?2. One man's cliche is another one's passion.3. I didn't post the link to get impressions and I honestly didn't hope everyone would like it either, hence the syntagm "now I have a watchable video". As in "for myself".4. I'm not the only one for whom the original music did not click, it seems. Wait, bad choice of words, actually all it did was click for five minutes :)5. I never edit or repost other people's videos, but this one had a profound impact on me and made me want to hear a more "customized" version.6. I was not being sarcastic.7. People are too quick to criticize these days.8. Arguing with someone about their musical taste is like trying to convince the world that sea water is sweet. It's got no finality.

"When you alter an original piece of creative work and claim it is better now".

When did I ever say it was "better than the original" ?

A quick browse of your recent posts shows that you're quite upset with those who didn't enjoy the original track.

Autotuners are original as well, that doesn't mean I have to like that crap.

You want to pass as this great defender of originality and creativity, and I have the greatest respect for both, but your final statement just goes to show that you're here to troll people that don't share your opinion.

People who claim they can end a normal discussion by calling the other "a troll", are the true trolls of this world.

And 'a quick browse of my posts", just shows I clearly have an opinion about people having no respect for the original work (calling it "cheap crap" for example"). Nothing more.

And now you post a link where you edit the music to make it work better for you - how is that not claiming it's better now, btw? I comment on that and you get all defensive. Next time, don't post the link if you can't handle opinions.

You're the one that approached this whole matter with that typical "holier than thou" attitude that I came to despise so much.

You can't really expect to mock people up with "fine" sarcasms such as "great enumeration skills" and be taken seriously after. And if YOU are free to post on an open forum and express your admiration towards an original score, then others have the very same right to express their discontent.

Arguing on bulletin boards is not really my specialty, so I think I'll let others handle this amazing task.

I'd like a higher POV, too - it'd mean the world is working with a bigger space budget. ;)

Wikipedia: "The ISS is maintained in a nearly circular orbit with a minimum mean altitude of 278 km (173 mi) and a maximum of 460 km (286 mi)."

As to music? It was chosen to evoke the filmmaker's POV. I think it works, though there are plenty of other possible approaches. Other than selecting and sequencing the various video clips and the music, the filmmaker had little room for expression, so I think he went for a "statement." Folks forget that the '2001' soundtrack wasn't just straight-up Strauss. Mid-20th Century composer György Sándor Ligeti's music probably gets more screen time than J. and R. Strauss put together. Ligeti provides the tension, Strauss, the relief. That's usually the way it is in film scores - dissonance/assonance. If you will, this video's soundtrack represents the turbulent situation on Earth, the visuals provide the breathtaking counterpoint.

Since both the ISS and the earth rotate the only way that stationary light can be a reflection of an outside object would be for that object to track the ISS to maintain the incidence angle constant. Quite unlikely.

I believe that is a reflection from inside the ISS. They are after all working (one can hope) and not sitting around in a dark room marveling at an intervalometer clicking away ;-)

Nice video, music sucks... but you can't let engineers pick music I guess :o)I bet it would be fantastic with some Blue Danube too! But that's been done already (and what a great bit of cinema that was!).

Interesting factoid: the ISS was built with the Space Shuttle (ok a few tiny rescue and resupply modules were sent up on Soviet-era rockets) but it couldn't be done today ... the end of the American space era... sad.